The S&P 500 index finished Friday with its seventh consecutive week of gains as a choppy trading day was buffeted by worries of weak retail sales and supported by positive economic data.

The Standard & Poor’s 500 fell 1.59 points, or 0.1 percent, to close at 1,519.79. The index, however, rose 0.1 percent for the week, notching its first seven-week winning streak since January 2011.

U.S. stocks hit their lows of the day in afternoon trading after a Bloomberg News report that a Wal-Mart Stores Inc. executive called the retailer’s February sales “a total disaster” in an internal e-mail.

The Dow Jones industrial average rose 8.37 points, or less than 0.1 percent, to close at 13,981.76. That wasn’t enough to save the Dow for the week; it logged its second week of losses in a row, with a 0.1 percent decline. Among components, Coca-Cola Co. shares ended the day 1.6 percent higher.

Wal-Mart shares, which closed down 2.2 percent, dragged on the Dow. The nation’s largest retailer is scheduled to report fourth-quarter earnings Thursday. Consumer spending, as evidenced by earnings reports from other retail-focused companies, have been a relative bright spot in the slow-going economic recovery.

Randy Hargrove, a spokesperson for Wal-Mart, told MarketWatch that “as with any organization, we often see internal communications that are not entirely accurate, that lack the proper context and represent individual opinions.”

While the Wal-Mart report dinged markets, investors started to shrug it off as trading wound down, said Robert Pavlik, chief market strategist at Banyan Partners.

“They took it with a grain of salt,” Pavlik said, noting that some market-watchers think Wal-Mart doesn’t portray an accurate picture of wider retail sales. Even so, the expiration of a payroll- tax holiday that took effect in January still weighs on consumer-spending expectations, he said.

A customer dining at Washington’s Oceanaire restaurant noticed an unusual line at the bottom of his receipt: “Due to the rising costs of doing business in this location, including costs associated with higher minimum wage rates, a 3% surcharge has been added to your total bill.”